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Two-time defeated Republican businessman and US Senate candidate John James questioned the integrity of the November election on Monday while seeking unsuccessfully to delay certification of Michigan election results.
James did not concede after losing the Michigan Senate race by 92,300 votes, according to results which were certified by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers on Monday. James, in a letter, and his attorney Charles Spies, who spoke personally to the board, asked canvassers to suspend the certification of the November election results by two weeks so that various unproven allegations of fraud and ” irregularities ”can be investigated.
Related: Council of Solicitors Certifies Michigan Election Results
Members of the board, made up of two Republicans and two Democrats, said they were legally required to certify results for Michigan’s 83 counties and had no authority to request an audit.
The council voted 3-0 to certify the outcome of the election after hearing from election officials, lawmakers and residents. Republican council member Norm Shinkle abstained from the vote and called on the Michigan legislature to investigate the state’s electoral process.
James acknowledged that “the outcome of my race is unlikely to change” in videos posted to Twitter on Sunday. However, James said it would be “selfish” to concede and is rather motivated to restore public confidence in the results.
In a letter to the board of directors, James said he “will accept the will of the people once the will of the people – not the will of power – is established.” James’ campaign could not be reached for comment on Monday afternoon and has declined several attempts to interview James since the election.
“We agree: The people of the state of Michigan deserve election results they can trust,” James wrote in a letter to the board. “In order to maintain this trust, the state needs both access to the ballots and the integrity of the ballots. If the two are not provided in a balanced proportion, then one side will always feel that they have not only lost but have been cheated. It is a danger for democracy. “
Courts have dismissed several lawsuits brought by President Donald Trump and other groups that have unsuccessfully raised allegations of fraud. Wayne County election officials have repeatedly vouched for the integrity of the Detroit election results.
Michigan Chief Electoral Officer Jonathan Brater advised the Council of State Solicitors to certify the results of the November election on Monday. Brater said no large-scale irregularities were found other than “typical human error that is always part of the process.”
Related: As the world watches, a Republican state solicitor helps formalize Biden’s Michigan victory
James’ campaign sent a 30-page letter to the board of directors requesting an audit of Wayne County’s results. The document contained allegations of imbalanced ballot books, improper storage of ballot papers, flaws in the processing of postal ballots and other issues.
The Republican businessman noted that 70% of Detroit’s neighborhoods were unbalanced, preventing those neighborhoods from being told. James said the result “would not have been accepted for the Iraqi election, and the people of Detroit and Michigan should not accept it either.”
However, the errors have been attributed to human error. Daniel Baxter, who oversaw the absentee counting process in Detroit, said there was a total imbalance of around 600 ballots within city walls.
James won 12,734 votes in Detroit, losing in the city by 214,700 votes. James lost in Wayne County by 322,200 votes.
Spies, an attorney representing James, said Detroit has long been known to have encountered errors and mistakes in past elections. He urged the board of directors not to certify the results “to get a sense of what happened in Wayne County.”
Aaron Van Langevelde, Republican and vice chairman of the board, said the board has no legal authority to request an audit. The spies disagreed, arguing that state law does not “expressly” prohibit an audit as part of a statutory obligation to “verify and determine the outcome of an election.
Van Langevelde, a lawyer who works for House Republicans, said the Spies’ interpretation of the law was incorrect.
“I couldn’t find anything about the power to delay certification because we’re waiting for more specific results; I couldn’t find anything about making certification conditional on an audit; I have not found anything that gives us the power to review fraud complaints. Said Van Langevelde.
“I think the law is pretty clear here. I do not see anything that gives us the power to act as a tribunal or as a prosecuting agency. We are just advice. He is responsible for examining these returns and certifying them. “
James raises money through a legal fees fund established with the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign treasurer. The Trump campaign created its own legal fund and aggressively raised funds from its supporters in November.
It’s unclear how much money James has raised through the legal fund, but the financial reports are due to be released later this year.
The Solicitor Council’s vote dealt another blow to Trump’s attempts to question the integrity of the 2020 election in Michigan and other states. Trump also claimed that James won the Michigan U.S. Senate race.
Mary Ellen Gurewitz, an attorney representing the Michigan Democratic Party, slammed James for raising doubts about the election while addressing the board of directors on Monday. Gurewitz said the James campaign repeated allegations that had been dismissed in various court challenges and was aligned with a Trump-led “racist campaign” to deny black voters their rights in cities like Detroit.
James said, “I’m not doing this for the president” in a video posted on Twitter Sunday.
“Whether you like it or not, when half of our state’s voters believe we have the safest elections in U.S. history and the other half think they’ve been cheated, we have a problem, ”James said.
READ MORE ABOUT MLIVE:
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6 reasons Michigan’s electoral fraud allegations defy common sense
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